


Having Kittens

by so_shhy



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Animal Transformation, Crack, Fluff, Kid Fic, Kittens, M/M, Mpreg, Schmoop, so much crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-30
Updated: 2012-05-30
Packaged: 2017-11-06 07:41:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/416396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/so_shhy/pseuds/so_shhy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'My boyfriend is a pregnant female telepathic cat,' Erik said. 'I think this time I'm entitled to panic.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Having Kittens

**Author's Note:**

> Now with a Chinese translation by germuse04 - see notes at the end!

**In which we discover that idioms may prove prophetic – one can be too considerate – cats have the right attitude – a month is a short time – we are slaves to our instincts – names have meaning – it pays to keep an accurate address book.**

 

'What the hell is the matter with you?' Erik asked, sometime during his third week of waking to the sound of retching. 'This is getting ridiculous. Didn't Hank find anything wrong?'

Charles looked up from his hunched position on the bathroom floor. 'Not exactly,' he said miserably. 'Excuse me, but can we talk about this later? I'm a little busy.' He leaned over the toilet again.

Erik shifted awkwardly. 'Do you want me to get you some water or something?'

'I want you to _go away_ ,' Charles snapped. Then he was violently sick.

Erik went and sat on the bed and sulked. By the time Charles re-emerged he'd worked himself into a state of extreme resentment. 'You're being irritating and stubborn,' he accused. 'Why won't you tell me anything?'

Charles sat down next to him. He looked awful, pale and shaky, his hair plastered down with sweat. 'Because you'll have kittens about it,' he said.

'Charles, I'm not the panicking type,' Erik said. 'Believe me, you can tell me.' Oh god, he's dying, he thought, horrified. His heart started thumping. He tried to control his breathing.

'I'm not dying,' Charles said, 'though it's sweet of you to be concerned.'

Damned telepaths. 'Well if you're not dying, what's so terrible? My god, Charles, will you just say it?'

Charles pouted in the lip-quivering way that meant tears were just over the horizon. 'All right, fine!' he said, 'I'm having a baby!'

Erik frowned. 'Is that another English idiom?'

'No,' Charles said, very quietly, 'you can take that one literally.'

***  
Erik tried to be good about it. He did. After he'd recovered from the shock of the whole unheard-of mutant male pregnancy he was determined to do the thing properly. Charles, however, was not inclined to cooperate.

'For the hundredth time,' he complained, 'I think I can manage to throw up without your help. Go away!'

Erik sighed. 'I'm being considerate and caring,' he said.

'Oh, fuck off,' Charles snarled. 'You're making me sicker than I already am.'

Charles wouldn't stop using Cerebro. He wouldn't cut down on his running, and he still stayed up all night reading journals, no matter how much Erik protested. He didn't seem to want his feet rubbed. He didn't want Erik to bring him flowers, or run him baths, or fetch and carry. When Erik made him dinner he looked at it sceptically and said, 'I don't care if I'm eating for two, I'm sure as hell not eating that.'

'Maybe you should go and rest?' Erik suggested one day, when Charles's nodding head almost hit the lab bench.

Charles went from dozy to spitting mad in an instant. 'Stop telling me to rest! I don't want to rest, if I wanted to rest I would be resting. What are you doing here? If you don't stop following me around like a puppy I swear to god I'm actually going to kill you with my brain.'

Somehow, Erik realised gloomily, whatever he did only seemed to make things worse, and whatever he suggested was always exactly the opposite of what Charles decided to do.

Really, knowing that, he should have been more careful about the recruitment mission.

***

'There's no way you can go hunting for mutants,' Erik told him. 'I'm not taking you.'

Charles didn't move from the passenger seat. 'Get in the car, Erik.'

'No. Not until you get out of it.'

'It's my car,' Charles said. 'If you won't get in I'll drive myself.'

'No!' Erik said. 'You should be resting. Look at yourself. You're bulging out of your cardigan, you keep falling asleep and you need to pee every five minutes. You're pregnant, get over it!'

Charles's face crumpled. 'I hate you sometimes,' he said, with a very audible wobble in his voice.

'Oh, don't cry,' Erik said guiltily. He crouched down by the open car door, and tried to put his arms round Charles. 'Come here.'

Charles jerked away. 'I'm not crying! I don't want a hug. Stop treating me like I'm weak and pathetic and fragile!' he wailed, dissolving into sobs.

'I don't think you're weak and pathetic and fragile,' Erik told him, realising that he might have been slightly insensitive.

'You do! And you said I was bulging. You think I'm ugly and fat.'

'I don't!' Erik's resolve broke. 'Oh hell, all right, you can come.'

Charles sniffed and wiped his eyes. 'I don't need your permission.'

Erik rolled his eyes. 'No, of course not,' he soothed. 'You're perfectly capable. But you will be careful?'

'Of course I'll be careful. Stop fussing, nothing's going to happen.

***

_To be fair_ , Charles’s voice said in his head, _I don’t think anyone could have predicted this._

‘I don’t want to be fair,’ Erik growled, hands clenching on the steering wheel. ‘I want you to stop being a fucking cat.’ He’d known it was a bad idea, but he'd let those big, tear-filled blue eyes cloud his judgement. And now, instead of a pint-sized professor, he had a fluffy tabby cat sitting in his lap.

Charles nuzzled at him. _Well, I won't be like this for ever,_ he said. _Two months isn’t very long, Erik. And she was terribly apologetic about it._

Erik gritted his teeth. ‘Charles you may not have noticed this, but you’re pregnant,’ he said.

_I’m still pregnant as a cat. I can feel it. Also, perhaps I should mention,_ Charles thought sheepishly, _I seem to be a girl now._

‘WHAT?’ Erik howled.

_Eyes on the road!_ Charles told him urgently.

Oh yes, Erik recalled belatedly, he was driving. ‘You’re a girl,' he said, his mind shying desperately away from the implications of that statement.

_Yes, I had a lick… a look, I mean, and there are certain things missing. The pregnancy must have confused the poor woman’s powers somewhat._

Erik resisted the urge to scream. ‘Aren’t you worried by all this?’ he asked, with what he thought was laudable calm.

Charles kneaded happily at his thighs. _Strangely enough, no. Cats are naturally placid creatures, I suppose. It’s really rather nice, I feel better than I have in months. I wish you’d stop panicking. You always panic._

'My boyfriend is a pregnant female telepathic cat,' Erik said. 'I think this time I'm entitled to panic.'

***

Charles continued to be placid. He purred contentedly in Erik’s arms while Raven yelled and Sean flailed and Alex laughed himself sick. He sat on the lab bench and washed his tail as Hank ran test after test. And when was pronounced perfectly healthy (if unfortunately feline), he hopped up onto Erik’s shoulder, rubbed against his ear and said, Feed me, please.

Erik reached up to pet him. 'Really?' he asked. 'You're not going to shout at me for trying to look after you?'

_I'm a cat, Erik_ , Charles thought at him. _I need to be fed and carried around and generally looked after. I need to do a lot of sitting on your knee and purring. I might read a bit, and maybe go for short walks around the garden. But basically that's it._

That really didn't sound so bad. 'So you won't ask to go on any more missions?' Erik said hopefully.

_Of course not._

'And you'll get plenty of sleep?'

_I could do with a nap right now, really,_ Charles said. _Food first. Then you can find a sunbeam to lie in and I'll sleep on your belly._

Erik felt a grin spread across his face.

_Don't be smug_ , Charles told him fondly. _I'll be back to my old self soon._

'You don't think you could stay a cat until the end of the pregnancy?' Erik asked.

_Sorry_ , Charles said. _You'd better enjoy it while it lasts. Besides, you wouldn't want your child to be born as a kitten, would you?'_

Erik supposed that he wouldn't.

***

'What do you mean, it'll be born next month?' Erik asked. Don't panic, he told himself. It seemed to work, sort of. Possibly by now he was getting used to nerve-wracking Charles-related disasters. 'He's only halfway through.'

'Yes,' Hank said, vaguely surprised at Erik's consternation, 'and a cat pregnancy is around nine weeks, so that means he has another month to go.'

'He's not a cat,' Erik snapped.

_Currently I am_ , Charles pointed out. He licked a paw.

'Charles, will you please take this seriously? You're actually going to have kittens!'

_Oh_ , Charles said. _Well, never mind, eh?_

'Kittens,' Erik moaned. 'Dr Spock doesn't say anything about kittens.'

***

A month went by altogether too fast for Erik's liking. And then Charles disappeared.

'Have you seen him?' Erik asked Raven desperately. 'I can't find him. I've looked everywhere.'

'Don't _panic_ Erik,' she told him. 'I'm sure he's just taking a nap.'

'He's not in his basket,' Erik fretted. 'He's not in the kitchen, he's not in our room. The kittens are due any day now. Why did I leave him alone?'

Raven looked a little worried. 'Ok,' she said, 'I'll help you look.'

Five minutes later they'd scoured the main rooms they used without luck. Erik was close to hyperventilating when a voice in his head said, _Hello?_

'Charles,' Erik panted, reinforcing the words with very pointed thoughts, 'Where the hell are you?'

_I'm in Sean's closet,_ Charles said. _Don't ask me why, it just seemed like the place to be._

'Are you OK?' Erik said frantically, running up the stairs three at a time.

_Yes,_ Charles said, tired but pleased. _I've got something to show you._

Erik stumbled into Sean's chaotic room. Discarded clothes were scattered everywhere. The closet door was ajar, and Erik pulled it open, barely noticing as he swept dirty underwear out of its path with a foot. There was an orange, fluffy sweater on the floor. On the sweater was Charles, curled possessively around two scrabbling, suckling shapes.

Erik fell to his knees. 'Kittens,’ he gasped. ‘Our kittens!' Two perfect little kittens, one tabby and one white. Miniscule fluffy specks of life.

Charles purred at him. _I should have called you, I know, but I wanted to be on my own somewhere dark and snug._

‘It doesn't matter,' Erik said, 'so long as you're all ok. Oh Charles, they’re…’ He felt tears start to trickle down his cheeks. ‘They’re so beautiful,’ he managed. 'Can I hold them?'

Charles's cat eyes narrowed suspiciously. _No,_ he said. _I’m sorry, but if you did I’d have to claw your eyes out._

'Oh,' Erik said. He felt bereft.

_But you can stroke them,_ Charles said, licking apologetically at his hand. _And you can stroke me, and tell me how clever I am._

'You're very clever,' Erik whispered. 'You're a genius. You made the two most wonderful kittens in the world. I'm so happy, Charles, this is the best day of my life.'

From the doorway, he heard a voice mutter, 'This is really fucking weird.' He ignored it and stroked his kittens.

***

They named them Wanda and Pietro. The kids called them Fluffy and Tibbles, until Erik was on the verge of homicide.

_Raven, you'd better stop_ , Charles advised. _Erik seems to be rather protective._

'What a surprise,' Raven said wryly. 'Oh, all right, I'll make the boys be polite about your bizarre cat-babies.'

'They are not bizarre cat babies,' Erik snapped. 'They're perfectly normal babies who just happen to be kittens. Lovely kittens. Aren't you lovely kittens?' he asked the two little balls of fuzz, who were stumbling around on unsteady legs. He scooped up Wanda and rubbed his nose into her fur, then lay on his back and put her on his chest. She dug her claws into his turtleneck and began the tiniest of purrs. Pietro scuttled over and started batting at his hand, and Charles came to rub against his cheek.

There was the sudden flash of a camera.

Erik raised his head, glaring. ‘What are you doing?’

Raven grinned. ‘This is going to be the best embarrassing baby picture ever taken.’

***

Erik liked having kittens. He watched the calendar with increasing anxiety as the end of the second month approached.

_I don't know what you're so worried about,_ Charles said. _They're not really supposed to be kittens. You should be glad that they'll be human soon._ He picked Pietro up in his mouth and carried him to the litter box. _I wonder if they’ll remember their toilet training._

Erik sometimes thought that Raven and the others had a point. There were a few, minor things about the situation that could possibly be considered a little weird. ‘I can deal with kittens,’ he said. ‘I’m sure babies are more difficult. What if it all goes horribly wrong?’

_Your capacity for panic continues to astound me_ , Charles said.

‘I’m not panicking,’ Erik said sullenly.

***

‘Erik. Erik!’ _ERIK!_ Charles said.

‘Hmm?’ Erik rolled over in bed. ‘What is it?’ There was something different about Charles’s voice. It sounded irritable. He hadn’t sounded irritable for a while. Strange, Erik mused. Perhaps it was a dream.

‘Wake up, will you?’ Charles said. ‘I changed back. We changed back.’

‘That explains it,’ Erik mumbled sleepily. ‘You were a lot calmer as a cat.’

‘Erik!’ Charles hissed, ‘Get the fuck up and deal with your babies.’

‘They’re yours too,’ Erik yawned, flicking on the light. Then his heart seemed to stop in his chest. Charles was sitting, naked and human, in the cat basket. He was cradling two sleeping babies. Real babies, Erik thought helplessly, with little button noses and pudgy fists, one fair and one dark. Real babies. His babies.

He was wide awake and out of bed in an instant. ‘Oh, Charles, look at them,’ he said, feeling the tears start to trickle again.

‘You look at them,’ Charles grouched. ‘And you can put some clothes on them and put them in their crib, because I feel like I’ve swallowed a furball, and I’m covered in spit, and I’m going to take a shower right now.’

Then he looked up at Erik. Despite his tone, there was a gigantic, soppy smile on his face. ‘They are rather beautiful, though,’ he said.

Erik was sure his own smile was just as big and soppy. He sat down next to Charles on the squashed ruins of the cat basket and took Pietro into his arms. Charles cuddled Wanda next to his once-again-manly chest.

They were perfect babies, Erik thought. He knew that soon they would cry and he would have to negotiate the horrors of bottles and formula, baby clothes and diaper changes, and all the things that you just didn’t have to worry about with kittens. But they would cope. He and Charles, together, could cope with anything.

‘We’re going to be fine,’ he said to Charles. ‘All of us.’

And if the worst came to the worst, they still had that mutant woman’s address.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Having Kittens](https://archiveofourown.org/works/501053) by [germuse04](https://archiveofourown.org/users/germuse04/pseuds/germuse04)




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